Conditions and Diseases Books

While some of the fundamental dietary changes that this book suggests are very helpful to many individuals to alleviate symptoms, the alkalizing diet is nothing more than a bandaid or a temporary fix. In a healthy individual, the body is able to properly regulate pH itself. Furthermore, there are many diverse underlying causes and pathways to IC, and it is my belief that every patient requires individualized treatment. My symptoms went from mild to unbearable after several months of following Amrit's standard regimen. I urge you to proceed with caution.

This book has many ideas to improve IC symptoms. The author is a nurse and former sufferer of IC, co-wrote w/ a doctor, Yoga instructor and other experts on IC. She has done extensive research. For example, antihistamines were recommended for IC but I never knew why. She explains how food allergies can cause havoc on the bladder. I have found other sources to collaborate food allergies can cause other medical problems as well.

Basically she states what we consume is too acidic which disturbs the lining of the bladder. She charts good and bad foods as well as good and bad habits that contribute to IC (example: Smoking=BAD, Massage=GOOD).

I have followed the basic "High Ph" philosophy in this book and took Elmiron for a year now and am nearly symptom free. Although I think the Elmiron has helped more than anything, this book is a must have if you have IC. I referred to it on a regular basis.

Read this book! This is the book that gave me the information I needed to heal myself. In fact, I am now HAPPY that I got IC because now I understand the mistakes I was making that lead to the IC in the first place, and I have altered my lifestyle to avoid more serious health problems in the future! I can't recommend this book enthusiastically enough. Before you put agree to those harsh treatments your doctor may have suggested, do yourself a favor and read this book. I am writing this without pain thanks to Amrit Willis and her IC buddies. Thank you!

I was diagnosed with IC and thought my life was over...I went to so many doctors and got no answers. I found this book and decided to follow it whole heartedly.
Following the advice of this book wasted a lot of my precious time in pain. I remember that time being horrific, I was peeing on strips of paper and I was in a maze of what was causing my burning every time I peed and why I was peeing every few minutes I also was sure I had a yeast infection, even though my cultures came back negative I felt itching and irritation.

I went to a pelvic floor physical therapist and within a few treatments I was not peeing often and it did not burn. cured. My constricted tissues were causing a hystamine reaction. I now eat everything I want and don't take any special supplements or anything like that. This book was a waste of time for me. Also there is no medical proof behind her alkaline/acid theory.

I have just started reading this book and I already have all the confidence and faith that by following the advice in this book, my future will be both IC-free and healthier than ever !
It is packed with explanation about the causes of IC, the effects of imbalance between alkaline and acid in the body, tips in the events of flares, lists of food to avoid/to eat, list of minerals, recipes,etc...the author explains how it is essential to retrieve a balance between alkaline and acid in the body, but is careful not to scare the reader. This book gives hope and confidence that we can get rid off IC and teaches us how to protect our precious health in the long-term too! (and protect the health of our loved ones too!)

If you suffer from IC, or know someone who does, then this is the book to get!

with best wishes to all other(soon "to be former") IC patients, and a big thank you to Amrit Willis for giving me so much hope !

I found the book very informative. The combination of nutrition, exercise and spirituality all tied together made you seem like there is a purpose for change. Making a few of the moderate changes in this book resulted in positive results. Much to my surprise I was actaully eating more but lost weight.

Thank You Kitty!

I found "HEAL YOUR HEART" worthwile reading.

This book has bridged the gap for me who at this time can't check into the Rice House health program at Duke University.

You have paved the way for me to change my eating habits
with all the smart information included.

The recipes are excellant fare!!

I noticed in just a few days a decrease in water retention.
sleeping sounder and clarity when awake. Wow where will I be in six months...?

Again Thank You for putting into this book the most valuable healing information for anyone determined to change their health picture!

Perseverence may come with these delicious recipes.

This is a great book! The recipes are simply delicious--I never have been able to bake bread before and have it turn out, but the whole wheat recipe here comes out beautifully and it's delicious. Some of my favorite recipes are the banana barley loaf, the lentil loaf, the oat pancakes and topping (I used apples rather than pears for the topping), the corn bread, the lentil soup, the marina and pasta sauces, the Indian Subzi. There are too many to name them all! And too, I use the advice in this book to convert older favorite recipes with unhealthy ingredients to heart healthy yet delicious alternatives. I love the approach too, with a focus on not only nutrition and fitness but also emotional and spiritual health-- I found that once I was used to not adding salt to food, and consistently followed the advice in the book, I no longer craved foods as I used to, achieved my target weight, and felt better than I ever had in my life. I have never had heart disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure, but all are very prevalent in my family. I wanted to do something to lose weight and to keep myself fit. I think the advice in this book is for everyone, those with heart disease and those who want to keep their hearts healthy. Heal Your Heart is an awesome book that can change your life.

Typical of diet books with lots of info that you hurry through to get to the meat of it. Pun not intended. Well researched and good diet to follow to get started on the program.

this book confused me. why did it need to be so mathmatically challenging? i don't want formulas and percentages.....just tell me what to do and how to do it. this plan is a good one, and i found better, easier to follow info on the net for free. i'm using maybe 5 pages out of this entire book to supplement the info i found. find it on clearance or borrow someone's copy.

Really enjoyed looking through this book can't wait to start using it but it makes it hard when there are so many to choose from.

The photos in this book are exceptional. The recipes are delicious. This cookbook is a must for anyone who wishes to augment their SCD cooking library. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet has completely healed me of Crohn's Disease. I have been free of disease for over 5 years and am taking no prescription medications, all thanks to this diet. This diet is the only way to control my chronic diarrhea.

Healing Foods is a helpful adjunct for a specific carbohydrate diet recipe collection. The photography is especially appealing. I would suggest that the author make a few changes to a possible next edition; a) include a "what to order in a restaurant" section, b) find a more successful bread recipe to accommodate sandwiches (those in the book are either too sweet, or break apart and can't be used as sliced bread, and c)proof the text more carefully as there are some errors. Finally, and important, would be a section listing sources for internet or phone orders for hard to find, organic, and vitamin orders. In summary, buy this book, as it's worth the money.

I am sort of collecting SCD books now! I have really been enjoying this book. There are many great, well-thought out, tested, recipes. There are comments and how-to's with recipes, which I appreciate. The recipes do not call for the dried curd cottage cheese which is impossible to obtain in Northern California--so I am appreciating that. There is a website mentioned in the book which I have checked out--it is just getting going it seems.
Oh, there are also beautiful pictures in this book. This book is really worth the price--I highly recommend it.

If you follow the SCD (absolutely miraculous help for me with Crohn's disease), you will certainly want to own this book. I haven't cooked from it extensively yet, but it's a lovely book to read through and will give you many ideas for new and delicious foods to cook when you are following the diet. As anyone on a diet knows, ideas and beauty are almost more valuable than recipes, as they make following the diet feel much less arduous. The Cheddar Cracker recipe alone is worth the price of the book. One of the best salty/crunchy snack foods ever, including "normal" foods! (I leave out the dried thyme and add onion powder and black pepper along with the cayenne pepper.) And they are incredibly easy and foolproof to make. Highly recommended.

Great book for people on the go who often stop at fast food joints or just like eating at restaurants. It helps me make the best choices when eating out. I was surprised by some of the calories and fat in the foods I ate. Salads are not always the best choice.

If you eat out or on the run, this is a great book to have in the car. Make better decisions

The information in this book is wonderfully helpful for planning before dining out. However, it is mostly fast-food information, rather than actual restaurants. Though the difficulty in assessing dietary exchanges in restaurant settings was explained, I hope that a future edition of this book would include more information from restaurants.

Even though fast food gets a bad rap, there are ways of eating healthier when having to eat out and this book shows you how. Sometimes foods may look better or worse than they seem because of hidden ingredients or factors you may not think of. This book helps you find the real numbers for a large variety of chain restaurants/fast food and takes the guesswork out of carb counting. I have my favorites marked with paper clips. I don't eat out without it.

I consider this book to be a completely indespensible resource for a diabetic. I've found this book to be useful in two different ways: #1 for just browsing through some of the restaurants and menu items to give you an idea about nutritional information in general. For example, you can peruse through a listing like "Starbucks" and learn how many carbs are in their various beverages, and then common things like bagels. Maybe you don't even like going to Starbucks, but such information is essential to know wherever you do go.

The second way this book is useful is to just pop in your suitcase or in your car when you travel. That way it just takes all the guesswork or awkwardness out of situations where you need to eat out, perhaps at restaurants you are not so familiar with. Just a quick glance at this book will tell you what will work for you and what won't.

I'm somewhat disappointed in the content. The best anti-cancer approach is to eat foods that alkalinize the body. The blood pH must be 7.35 - 7.5 to actually beat cancer, depending on the type of cancer and the stage of cancer. Max Gerson's plan leads you to beat whatever disease you have, not just cancer.

I first found this book at the library and liked it so much that I brought 2, one for a friend. It is one of the best books on diet and cancer I have read!! It is very helpful, especially if you are getting chemotherapy or radiation, because it tells how to deal with the side effects.

The cancer-fighting nutrient most proven to date is selenium. A daily supplement of 200 microgram of selenium, has been shown in a large placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical study -- the most prestigious type of scientific study of nutrients and drugs -- to cut the death rate from cancer in half.

Specifically, a large group of people who were given each day a yeast tablet enriched with 200 micrograms (mcg) of selenium had only half the number of deaths from cancer over a seven year period as a similarly large control group who were given a daily yeast tablet containing no selenium. Yeast tablets enriched with 200 mcg of selenium are readily available at pharmacies as well as health stores across the U.S. for about $5 or so for a bottle of 50 to 100 tablets -- only 10 cents or less per day -- I do.

The results of this dramatic study were published in the medical profession's own journal: The Journal of the American Medical Association. Nevertheless, most doctors pay no attention to the results. Think about that, selenium (at 10 cents per day or less) has been shown in a large clinical study to cut the death rate from cancer in half and nobody tells the public about it. Incredible! In my opinion, as a research chemist, everybody in the U.S. should take supplemental selenium every day.

Other nutrients which help prevent cancer include vitamin C, vitamin E, CoQ10, and lycopene.

This is a book that I would have liked to have known about whn I started undergoing treatment for Breast cancer. Have been going through Chemo treatments since September of 2005. Has been hard to find just what I should be eating to keep my energy level up and keep me going. This is a great book.

I have two other books that echo much of the information in this book, so I found the entire book rather repetitious, and the other books I have are much better, more organized and more entertaining.

What can I say, it is just OK. Alot of things if you aren't experimental on ingredients you won't use this cookbook. I would not buy again.

As a aging single man still on a heavy urban work schedule who normally opted to eat out, this book truly helped me when I decided that at my age, I had a prostate cancer risk and I needed to watch my diet. The only way for me to get a handle of what I was putting in my mouth was to try to prepare more of my meals. This would be a challenge with all the work I have during the day but this book made the challenge much easier because many of the meals in the book are simple adaptations of standard dishes. I now feel so less gorged than when I ate out. In fact I have more sustained energy with balance nuitients. I don't get that low slump after eating the heavy carb and fat dishes one gets eating out. The recipe portions are reasonable and I'm certain I can avoid the late middle age spread that so many of my fellow countrymen suffer from. I can continue to easily get down the aisle and still fit into a economy middle airplane seat. My doctor and I are happy my cholesterol went down a bit, too.

The word "cancer" is possibly one of the most fearful one can hear. Along with good medical treatment, it is so useful to do something yourself to help. Good, tasty, nutritious meals are a very good start. This gem of a cookbook is a must. I heartily recommend it. The recipes are not complicated. I am not a "gourmet" cook. But they are easy and the ingredients can be found in most food stores and health food stores. I wish more physicians were inclined to stress nutrition along with proper medication, but this is something you can do yourself. By all means, get this book!

David Ricketts wrote this book because he developed prostate cancer; I cook from it because it's chockful of fabulous tasting, easy-to-prepare, and super-nutritious recipes. And because, as a nutritionist, I know that basing a diet on the foods featured in this book is a smart choice, not only for men who are trying to beat prostate cancer, but for anyone who is striving to stay healthy.

This is a great cookbook for anyone to use. Easy to follow recipes, foods that are very healthy and spices that enhance the flavors.

Our cholesterol has gone down and that was not the focus of purchasing the book.

Recommend without reservation!!

A pretty good resource for making semi-healthy, low-sugar "every day" dishes. I say semi-healthy because the author uses artificial sweeteners, butter-substitutes, processed and canned ingredients, and there are also recipes that contain pork and shellfish (neither of which my family eats), all of which I do not find are very healthful foods/ingredients. Definitely NOT a cookbook for gourmet dishes to entertain guests or for special occasion dishes, but does contain quick, simple, convenient "every day" dishes with minimal ingredients that are easy to find. The dishes taste mediocre at best with less than a handful being what I would call fairly good, and some in appearance honestly look like regurgitated food (like the Homestyle Skillet Stew with ground turkey and the Potluck Casserole, which uses canned Franco-American Spaghetti and cream of mushroom soup!). On the positive side, I have to say that I DID lose weight when I first started using this book for meals several years ago. Fairly good recipes are Chicken Enchiladas with Sour Cream Sauce and Chicken Paprikosh. If you like great-tasting and appearing food, this is not the book for you. But if you don't mind skimping on flavor and presentation a little bit for convenience, simplicity, and low-cost ingredients, then try this book.

I love Doris's books, really I do! That's why I was so disappointed to get this book and find most of the recipes are mediocre, at best. There isn't anything in this book that tastes like real, good, Mexican cooking. You can find better in many other books. I just cringe having to say this when I'm such a fan of Doris's other books, but her Mexican book and her Italian book just...rather suck. I've had so much better in other books. Save your money and maybe check this one out of the library to try a few recipes first, and see if I'm wrong. If you agree with me, then you aren't out any money. Sorry....this one just flat misses the boat on flavor and excitement. Bleh.

I was very impressed with this cook book. Lots of food choices and they really are REAL foods that taste good. I would highly recommed this cook book for anyone trying to control their diet....what ever the reason. Lots of helpful tips....breaks down calories etc. Very good!

I just received this book and have already tried 10 of the recipes..all were wonderful! Having recently been diagnosed with diabetes, I was looking for recipes that not only I would like but those that would also please my "steak and potatoes please" husband. This was the book! All those yummy comfort foods you thought you'd have to give up are here and now healthy!

Got this for my Dad after a new diabetes diagnosis and he has literally devoured the information and recipes in here. It gave him hope he could eat food that tasted good and still met his cravings and needs. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The author discusses the all-important food pyramid consisting
of fats & oils used sparingly, milk, yogurt, cheese (2-3 servings), vegetable soup (2-4 servings) and pastas/breads.
Nuts may be eaten to lower cholesterol. Approximately 70 grams a day of unabsorbed carbohydrates enter the colon absorbed by colonic bacteria. The absorption is into methane, hydrogen and
CO2. Antioxidants fight free radicals. The ideal diet seeks to
have the patient limit coffee and most alcohol drinks except for
an occasional wine.The book has value in the arsenal of weapons
in the health care reference library. I would supplement this work with research applicable to grains for celiacs and persons
who do not process grains efficiently in the body.

This book addresses good nutrition in general, and then offers specifics for a variety of GI diseases. It is well-written and very understandable. But if you are buying this book for the specifics on a certain disease, you will likely be disappointed. There is not a lot of depth in the disease-specific chapters. Disease-specifc chapters range from 5-19 pages, with only one stretching over 20 pages. For example, the IBS chapter is only 7 pages.

If you suffer from many ailments or are simply looking for a general overview, get this book. Otherwise you should probably look for a more detailed, disease-specific book.

While Janowitz covers many digestive problems in this book, I was specifically interested in Chapter 12: What Should We Feed the Inflamed Intestine? Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease. He spends a great deal of time outlining a "low-residue" diet as well as a low-oxalate diet, both of which are purported to assist persons suffering from IBD. Since both diets are quite nutritionally sound, they are certainly worth trying and his discussion on lactose sensitivity is one of the most balanced I've read. With only one chapter pertaining to IBD, it might be more practical to request this book interlibrary loan rather than purchase it, but if you have other family members with other digestive problems, the other chapters may have increased relevance and applicability!

This new book is long overdue for those of us with digestive problems who never know what to eat and are always trying to maintain good nutrition. The first part the book reviews the elements of a realistic, reasonable diet necessary for overall good health (chapters include "Is There an Ideal Diet?" and "The Do's and Don'ts"). The larger second part of the book, looks at digestive disorders and the role of diet in preventing, causing, or treating them, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and IBD (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis). The central question of the book is how to treat digestive diseases, like IBS or IBD, and still eat healthy foods? The section on food and IBD, includes advice about caffeine and alcohol, lactose and dairy products, fiber (when to take it and when to avoid it), vitaman supplements, food supplements, enteral nutrition, kidney stones in IBD, and more. Dr. Janowitz's dietary recommendations are practical and should help those of us with less than stellar digestive tracts to eat better and find improved health. A superb book and sure to be as popular as his previous books, Indigestion and Your Gut Feelings.

Janowitz performs a real service with his books. Good Food is an accurate, detailed discussion of IBS and diet. It covers a lot of ground so it probably cannot be easily read in one sitting. It's the kind of reference book that you'll go back to time and time again. The index is very well done so it's very useful.

Really a well done book on IBS and diet.

My son has suffered with IBS all of his life. This was the first book or doctor who was able to help with his condition. Imagine my suprise to find that not only does Dr. Gibbons have a book but also a web site where you can send Dr. Gibbons questions. What a big help that has been in my sons life...

I had been to 3 separate doctors, had numerous tests, and tried a lengthy list of medications. I found out about this book in a chat room and the reviews were so glowing that I thought it must be a marketing scheme. I bought it anyway because I had nothing to lose at that point in my life. As I read the book, I felt vindicated and thought he was describing my life. This book changed my life. For anyone that has ever suffered from fructose intolerance this will make sense to you....my husband and I can now go out to dinner and a movie instead of a movie and then dinner (so that we can race home after for me to be sick!)

For over half of my life (20+ years) I suffered from IBS. I had become almost completely homebound because of this. My life changed overnight when I bought this book. I started following the diet and I noticed a huge difference the first day. With in a few weeks I was a different person. I know this sounds corny but it's true. Dr. Gibbons saved my life. I have been pretty much symptom free now for several years. IBS no longer controls my life and IBS never even crosses my mind unless I'm bragging to someone about this book which I do every time the opportunity arises. This book will change your life. It did mine. I wish every person who suffers from IBS could know about this book. I thought there was no hope for me but I was wrong. I also lost about 120lbs. buy doing nothing more than taking calcium like Dr. Gibbons suggests. The calcium blocks 14 grams of fat per dose from being absorbed by your body. The information in this book is nothing like what the doctors have told you in the past, it's probably the opposite but this will help you. Thanks Dr. Gibbons.

When I first browsed this book I said "Yes I know that", "Yes I know that","Yes I know that". I put the book back on the self. After a couple of weeks I decided maybe their was something in the book I didn't know. I went back and bought it. It was nice to find comformation of what I had found over the years to be helpful. My Doctor always looked at me like I was crazy when I told him these things. This book is a must read for anyone with bowel problems.

Dr. Gibbons lays out the causes and effects of I.B.S. He gives his own medical history that has effected him and how it lead him to find answer on how to best help himself. I have read the book and now follow his diet that he has explained what one needs to do to get immediate relief. I feel so much better now I can not believe the difference. Anyone who suffers with crohn's disease, celiac sprue, colitis, diverticulosis, galactosemia, infant colic, post-colostomy colitis, ulcerative colitis will benefit from this book. There are so many area's that are symptoms of I.B.S that I never even realized. My doctor was unsure at first when I started this diet, but he has seen the results and now believes, but more importantly, I feel great.

What I liked:
The author used many humorous stories to make his point, keeping the book both entertaining and instructive. He also used primary sources, which upped his credibility. The book was easy to read and took the time to explain processes such as distilling. It gave a variety of arguments that one could easily understand and used logic and psychology. I particularly liked the use of psychology, and it was something one doesn't usually encounter in a history book. The Appendix also contained information, and my favorite was a recipe that used several different kinds of alcohol to make a "punch."
The author also gave background information on many things that were indirectly related to the drinking - things such as eating, jobs, urban sprawl, etc. It was very fascinating the way he tied everything together.
He gave a pretty objective view. He wasn't really making an argument, more like informing readers on what was going and why. He seemed to be unbiased and, in some ways, detached (but never bored with his subject).

What I didn't like:
The sources were not posted at the end of the page or chapter, but at the end of the book. This was slightly frustrating, as there were several times I wanted to check the author's source but it was a hassle to have to find it each time. Also, when several sources were used in one paragraph, he didn't "cite" anything until the end of the paragraph. This made it look like he wasn't citing some of his sources - if I hadn't read his notes on the bibliography I probably wouldn't have figured it out.
It was also slightly confusing to tell what time the author was talking about. He seemed to jump around from time period to time period, and it would've been nicer to have the focus on, say, the 1820s, when alcoholic beverage drinking was at an all-time high.


Overall, it was an excellent read, and I recommend it to all history buffs (or alcohol buffs).

William Rorabaugh, an associate professor of History at the University of Washington, provides a very interesting study of alcoholic consumption in the United States from the 18th century through the mid 1800s. He looks at the issue from the supply side (expense and technology in the production of distilled beverages and the import of rum) and the demand side. There is some eye-opening information in this work. The annual per capita consumption of alcohol between 1800-1830 exceeded 5 gallons; nearly triple today's consumption (p. 8). The demand for alcohol (particularly whiskey) stemmed from such things as alleged medical and dietary benefits, social camaraderie, a way to cope with a rapidly changing society, and such particle reasons as the lack of alternatives (water and milk was unhealthy and other substitutes were comparatively expensive) and strong beverages were needed to overcome the bland, monotonous American diet. Rorabaugh also devotes much of this study to the medical and moral critics of alcohol, including temperance societies. One doctor in the 1740s favored moderation: "not more than one bottle of wine each evening" (p. 32). I believe there is a lot of over-generalization in this study, especially when disillusionment over the voting system and the burden of living up to the ideals of the independent man are used as reasons for drinking (although drinking probably came before such feelings). Still, the book is extremely well-researched, with source notes at the end and several appendixes on estimating consumption of alcohol, cross-national comparisons of consumption, and cook books. The text, excluding the appendixes, is 222 pages and includes illustrations.

Given the drinking habits of Americans of all social classes in the 18th Century, as described by Prof. Rorabaugh, there's a good chance that some or many of the leaders who gathered in Philadelphia for various momentous decisions were "under the influence" a good part of every day. But then, so was everyone, man, woman, and child, with the probable exception of slaves. No stigma attached to the drinking of mild alcoholic beverages, such as the universal hard cider, although a few smart fellows - Ben Franklin and Ben Rush inter alia - had come to recognize some of the health issues of drinking hard liquors. There are amusing tales about the drinking habits of Chief Justice John Marshall. Before he took his seat on the Court, a tradition had been established of allowing an open bottle of fortified wine on each justice's desk on cold and rainy days. Supposedly Marshall, a life long heavy drinker, declared 'the USA is a large enough country that it must be raining somewhere every day' and thereafter allowed the bottles at all times.

Rorabaugh's writing style is a blend of down-home aw-shucks anecdote and solid scholarship, a combination that makes his book highly enjoyable but that somewhat distracts attention from the serious social history he is delivering. Changes in drinking habits, and in attitudes toward drinking, had a lot more to do with increasing hostility to certain immigrant populations - German and Irish - and with rapidly increasing class consciousness and economic inequality. Those are very significant threads in the social history of ante-bellum America, and Prof. Rorabaugh's account of the temperance movement can be seen as a synechdoche for the polarization of all American public lief and politics. In the long run, the same impulses that led earnest citizens to campaign for temperance were also the impulses that led to abolition, women's suffrage, civil service reforms, sanitation committees, and the "Social Gospel" movement - every progressive reform, in short, in American history before the repeal of Prohibition.

Don't let the cover of this book deceive you! This is substantial historiography, well researched and more insightful than inebriating.

The United States has long had a reputation for heavy drinking. Guzzling to the point of intoxication still reigns as a favorite pasttime for high school and college students, and even for some adults. Banning liquor on college campuses can lead to riots (a lesson learned the hard way even recently), and some people will jump through any impossible hoop to ensure their portion of the communal keg. Though alcohol still creates problems for the current generation, what were the attitudes of Americans towards it historically? Has drunkedness always been an issue in America? Not much literature existed on the subject in the 1970s, which the author noticed while researching nineteenth century temperance pamphlets. He then found that drinking weaves a deep and unpredictable path through United States history. But he found some unexpected things along the way. These findings led him to write "The Alcoholic Republic".

An eye-widening surprise opens the book: Americans actually drank more liquor between the years 1790 and 1820 than ever before or since. We actually drink half as much alcohol today as our post Revolutionary ancestors. A chart in the first chapter shows consumption peaking at over 5 gallons per capita in the early 1800s as contrasted with approximately 2 gallons in 1970. A sharp drop occurred in the 1840s and the rate hovered around 2 gallons going forward. Looking at data published by the National Institutes of Health after the book's 1979 publication shows that the rate peaked at only 2.7 gallons in the early 1980s and leveled off at 2.2 gallons in 2002. So the early nineteenth century rate of 5 gallons per capita still remains shocking even with current data. This leads to the inevitable question of why Americans used to drink so much.

To answer this vexing question the author delves into the history of alcohol in Colonial and Revolutionary America. Suprisingly, in the seventeeth century alcohol was seen as "A Good Creature" and as healthful and nutritious to drink. But slowly, by the 1720s, some suspected that alcohol contributed towards reprehensible behavior and disease. Unfortunately, access to alcohol, especially rum, increased as the price dropped (due to more efficient methods of production). So all classess could imbibe with near impunity. By the late eighteenth century some physicians such as Benjamin Rush (still practising the Galenic theory of medicine) began to publish anti liquor tracts condemning it as dangerous. Most were ignored (which invites a comparison to today's anti-smoking literature). But by the 1820s a national temperance movement had gathered momentum. Still, consumption continued, and rum even became a medium of exchange in early America. Water, by sharp contrast, was not drunk by most Americans because it was seen as unhealthy (except for rain water, which didn't contain thick sediments). Copious alcohol stood as the most palatable option for drinks. And everyone drank, including women, children, politicians, clergy, slaves, judges, juries, etc.

But, as the author explains, just because alcohol remained cheap doesn't mean that people had to drink it. What accounted for the 5 gallon consumption rate per capita? Here the discussion becomes more speculative but nonetheless remains fascinating. The author reflects on the upheavals caused by America's transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. Many people undoubtedly became displaced and confused as tradition gave way to commerce. Such travails led to anxiety, and these anxieties thus led people to drink in mass quantities (Appendix four provides more detailed support for this theory). In effect, early nineteenth century Americans were driven to drink by the astonishing changes of their time. Intuitively this sounds like a tenable theory, but finding conclusive evidence for it obviously remains difficult.

As the book progresses, it slowly expands beyond the subject of drinking and onto American society itself. Elements such as the conflict between egalitarian ideals and the reality of inequality get discussed, as well as the pressures to succeed in early industrial America. By the final chapter, the author expostulates on the balancing influences of American life and society, or the material versus the religious elements, and how we're currently out of balance. These subjects grow out of material related to the temperance movement, which gets credited, at least partially, for the drastic reduction of alcohol consumption between 1820 - 1840. The author dismisses various theories for the origins of the movement, and claims that people just needed an alternative to drinking, and abstinence fed their religious and moral sides (the "Second Great Awakening" had emerged in the early 1800s).

Regardless of its highly speculative nature, the book manages to provide loads of fuel for thought. Also, the author clearly states in the preface that he's not out to "prove" anything: "It matters less that my speculations are correct, although I hope that some of them will be proved in time, than that I have provoked the reader to think and explore for himself. That is why I wrote the book." In this the author definitely succeeds. The book will likely leave curious readers loaded with questions and attempting to test some of the theories the author evokes. And some of the sections dealing with disappointment and inflated expectations may even allow some to reflect on their own place in society. Also, a tenable picture of early American life emerges from the text along with glimpses of the evolution of America and its attitudes towards drinking (the section on elections will elicit gasps or bitter laughter). Lastly, perhaps the theories in this book, if solidified, could potentially point to societal warning signs by examining the the levels of alcohol consumption (along with other chemicals). In the end, the book will leave readers hoping that America will never see such heights of intoxication as it did in its early stages.

If you enjoy reading history, pull up a chair and pour down the whisky because you are going to read "The Alcoholic Republic." It is on the drinking patterns in the United States and the reading is simply interesting as well fascinating. You thought drinking was terrible these days lets go back to the great alcoholic binge of the nineteenth century.

"It was the consensus, then, among a wide variety of observers that Americans drank great quantities of alcohol. The beverages they drank were for the most part distilled liquors, commonly known as spirits.. whiskey, rum, gin and brandy. On the average those liquors were 45 percent alcohol, or, in the language of distillers, 90 proof." (Page 7)

It is simply a fun history book to read and recommend the drunkenness to anyone interested in the drinking habits of previous Americans. I give it five stars because it is one of the most interesting history books I have read in a long time.